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Coming to work in British School made me learn skills I never needed before. On of them is Classroom Management. It was hard road and I still cannot say I am there. It was tough to stand in front of pupils who have different cultural background and less polite and learning orientated behaviour then I was used to from my teaching experience... (although this varies from class to class). In one of the behaviour management courses (Tribal) the presenter mentioned the positioning in the room and its power and how different messages are conveyed depending on where and how do we stand in front of students... This made me curious and any time I remembered I tried a little experiment.

Recently I was lazy and I forgot about my position (also thinking that I don’t need that after three years in the school). Most of the time I was sitting. The discipline and attention I had at the very beginning of the lesson slowly disappeared. Later after the lesson I was not happy about my performance and started to think: What went wrong? When? Why?

I was sitting. Even when I was asking for the silence for x-th time I was still on the chair behind student's desk... Probably looking very relaxed and like someone who does not give a damn. The message must have been very confusing for the class…

The Proxemics – The Psychology of the Environment describes and studies the positioning of people towards each other and in the space... How the perception of the person can change depending on whether we are standing, sitting, whether we are across each other or by the side...

We learn from that field of study that people consciously or subconsciously choose to be in a particular spot in relationship to others depending on their interpersonal relationship, the context of the communication, and their particular goals (Hall 1966)

Anyone coming into the classroom needs to think about the space and how to use it to his benefit. Whilst being 'angry' and requesting silence and attention from everyone, one cannot stand in the back or sit with legs crossed... Being happy and joking with the class cannot be done with ‘evils’ and shouting.

But which position and posture is most effective? From the course i mentioned earlier I remember this advice: ‘Choose the spot in the front but not in the middle. Rather towards left or right side of the room depending on your visual preference (e.i. Right handed people tend to turn slightly to the right and look to the left, therefore they should stand more to the right side of the room...). Relax. Jaws need to be relaxed not clenched as this is a message of anger and shows that you are not under control. Do not smile either (one of my friend who has many public appearances said he pushes a thumb nail under his little finger nail. The pain will override other emotions and he will stop smiling or laughing. And it is almost invisible) Feet shoulder wide apart and and hands relaxed along the body. (I tend to hold the boarder marker in my hands so it does not feel awkward having them hanging down...) This works. Being foreigner I may have difficulty to choose the right vocabulary and have real impact with what I am saying. But the body says the message more than clearly...

Teacher's proximity to a student or students establishes the specific student-teacher relationship. We realize that there will be occasions when that relationship reflects a hierarchy of power, other times when a more caring relationship is indicated; and yet other times when the relationship is somewhere in between. (Taubert and Mester 1994)

I know this might be nothing new for many presenters and teachers out there. But nowadays here in the UK there are so many people taking and supervising classes without the advice on how to use the space of the classroom.

Because I rarely stay in the same classroom all day/ week sometimes I go to the room earlier to check whether the desks and layout of the room are as I want them and if not I will adjust them to my need. I will check windows, clean any mess there and look around how I can use the space effectively... It usually cost 2-3 min of my time but I get more pleasure from taking the class. And I can also plan little experiments with my posture and positioning to see what really works (warning: some classes less predictable than weather and what works today, won't work tomorrow...)

Further reading:

Robert T. Tauber, and Cathy Sargent Mester, Acting Lessons for Teachers: Using Performance Skills in the Classroom (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994) iii, Questia, 28 Oct. 2009 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=9627827.

http://www.careerrocketeer.com/2009/07/proxemics-psychology-of-positioning-use.html

Teacher positioning in the classroom | Teaching English | British Council | BBC

Herman Aguinis, Melissa M. Simonsen, and Charles A. Pierce, "Effects of Nonverbal Behavior on Perceptions of Power Bases," Journal of Social Psychology138.4 (1998): 455, Questia, 28 Oct. 2009 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97802129.

The Big Question: Why are pupils making so many false allegations against teachers?

2009-11-14T09:16:00.000Z

By Richard Garner, Education Editor

Are the problems caused by these allegations really so bad?

Yes...

*A staggering 28 per cent of teachers say they have had a false allegation made against them by a pupil

*Some teachers have had to wait more than two years before they are cleared

*Some of those eventually declared innocent have found it too traumatic to return to the classroom

No...

*The Government has declared that teachers should not automatically be suspended if an allegation is made

*The ATL survey showed it was possible to carry on teaching a pupil even after a false allegation

*The Government's call for teachers' right to anonymity during an investigation will protect them from stigma

The Independent

Resources from BBC

2009-11-13T20:24:00.000Z

Word Cloud of my essay…

2009-11-12T14:26:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Education | Parents pushing to run own school

2009-11-12T13:42:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Education | Parents pushing to run own school: "Sitting in the spartan surroundings of the 1960s-style food and technology room, lined with hobs and sinks, they discuss the latest development: a local bus company has agreed to provide extra services to bring in the pupils."

Dude alert: How to keep beach teens in the classroom - Schools, Education - The Independent

2009-11-10T14:14:00.000Z

Dude alert: How to keep beach teens in the classroom - Schools, Education - The Independent: "'Just because it's called surf science it doesn't make it easy,' says Lowry. 'It's very hard work. The surf science modules are at degree level standard and are overseen by Plymouth University and we're also taking A-levels in sport, travel and business studies.'"

BBC NEWS | Education | Faith schools warned on RE texts

2009-11-08T14:13:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Education | Faith schools warned on RE texts: "Ofsted surveyed 51 schools in England from the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu faiths, at the request of Schools Secretary Ed Balls.

Inspectors said some materials were biased or had incorrect information about the beliefs of other religions.

But the schools were judged to be good at helping pupils understand the importance of being a good citizen."

Education Quandary: Parents have been banned from drinking lager at the school gate. What other school gate behaviour should we clamp down on? - Schools, Education - The Independent

2009-11-07T14:12:00.000Z

Education Quandary: Parents have been banned from drinking lager at the school gate. What other school gate behaviour should we clamp down on? - Schools, Education - The Independent: "I would ban parents who threaten my staff with violence as well as parents who demand to see me, the school head, about a pair of lost trainers. I'd ban parents who send their children to school with flu, parents who never remember to sign permission slips, those who turn up an hour-and-a-half late to collect their children from school... These, thank goodness, are the tiny minority. Most of my parents are lovely."

BBC NEWS | Education | What will you be when you grow up?

2009-11-05T14:11:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Education | What will you be when you grow up?

School with a zoo is named UK's greenest - Education News, Education - The Independent

2009-11-04T13:35:00.000Z

School with a zoo is named UK's greenest - Education News, Education - The Independent: "It all started when assistant headteacher Sean O'Donovan, who trained as a rural studies teacher, launched a school farm 14 years ago. Then, it was just a case of a few rabbits and chickens. Now it has expanded to include the alpaca, Shetland ponies, chinchillas, pigs and even boa constrictors. The snakes came from HM Customs and Excise, which has been so impressed with the way the school looks after animals that it is on its list as a possible sanctuary for animals that have been smuggled into the country and are in emergency need of a new home. In fact, the school was offered 60 boa constrictors, but diplomatically put it to HMC&E that it would prefer to cope with just two.

Looking after animals is a central feature of the school's curriculum and many of its pupils harbour ambitions to become involved in animal welfare when they leave school. Some are employed by the school and look after animals in the holidays and at weekends while continuing with their studies."

Parents to be given right to make formal complaints about pupils disrupting school classes | Mail Online

2009-11-01T20:13:00.000Z

Parents to be given right to make formal complaints about pupils disrupting school classes | Mail Online: "Parents will be encouraged by the Government to make formal complaints about the behaviour of disruptive pupils who wreck lessons for their classmates, Schools Secretary Ed Balls revealed yesterday.

Families will be granted new rights to complain if schools fail to maintain order in class as part of a final bid by Labour to reform education before the next election.

Parents will be encouraged to make representations first to the school and then to an impartial ombudsman."

BBC NEWS | Education | Tech addiction 'harms learning'

2009-10-30T23:04:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Education | Tech addiction 'harms learning': "Technology addiction among young people is having a disruptive effect on their learning, researchers have warned.

Their report concluded that modern gadgets worsened pupils' spelling and concentration, encouraged plagiarism and disrupted lessons.

The study of 267 pupils aged 11 to 18 found 63% felt addicted to the internet and 53% to their mobile phones."

Social Sciences and Society - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-10-28T16:55:00.000Z

Social Sciences and Society - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com: "Mr. Gardner’s favorite puzzles are the ones that require a sudden insight, like this one from his “aha! Insight” collection: How could you and a friend both stand on the same single sheet of newspaper in such a way that you can’t touch each other? (If you want to try this one out, I hope you’ll use a sheet from the Times.) Dr. Gardner believes that the evolution of that aha! pleasure has been crucial to human culture."

Birmingham Post - News - Education News - Birmingham schools seek PATH to better behaviour

2009-10-26T16:57:00.000Z

Birmingham Post - News - Education News - Birmingham schools seek PATH to better behaviour: "Thousands of pupils at 30 selected primary schools in Birmingham are to take part in a mass social experiment aimed at improving their behaviour and interactive skills.

The two-year pilot, which is based on a programme developed in the US, is to commence immediately after the October half-term break.

At the end of the two years, children at the participating schools will be compared with pupils of a separate ‘control group’ of 30 primaries to see how their overall conduct has improved."

Visible Thoughts: The New Psychology of Body Language

2009-10-24T22:46:00.000+01:00

Visible Thoughts: The New Psychology of Body Language

Human language, after the deluge, came about as an exchange of natural gestures to which vocalizations later became associated and Condillac attempted to describe how this process might have proceeded.

Your Thanet News

2009-10-22T20:13:00.000+01:00

Your Thanet News: "Professor Frank Furedi of the University of Kent makes the claims in his new book – Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating – in which he delivers a damning report on the major issues impacting on our schools."

Book I read on Questia.com now

2009-10-20T13:28:00.000+01:00

Visible Thought
The New Psychology of Body Language
by
Geoffrey Beattie

new theory of bodily communication, or at least of an important part of bodily communication, namely the movements of the hands and arms that people make when speaking. I will argue that such movements are not part of some system of communication completely divorced from speech, as many psychologists have assumed, rather they are intimately connected with speaking and with thinking.

A new model of learning - Winnipeg Free Press

2009-10-18T13:12:00.000+01:00

A new model of learning - Winnipeg Free Press: "integrate the university into the cultural, educational and social fabric of the community under a new model known as 'community learning.' The phrase is a description of the work the university has done in throwing open its doors to groups that have traditionally felt excluded, notably aboriginals, and the use of its resources to address the full range of social, economic and environmental problems in the community."

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | The 'youngest headmaster in the world'

2009-10-18T12:03:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | The 'youngest headmaster in the world': "At 16 years old, Babar Ali must be the youngest headmaster in the world. He's a teenager who is in charge of teaching hundreds of students in his family's backyard, where he runs classes for poor children from his village."

Minister rejects plan to start lessons at six - Education News, Education - The Independent

2009-10-16T16:16:00.000+01:00

Minister rejects plan to start lessons at six - Education News, Education - The Independent

eLearning Expectations? | eLearning Infusion

2009-05-16T12:20:00.000+01:00

eLearning Expectations? | eLearning Infusion

7 Ways to Assess Effectively FOR Learning | Marmara Elt Resources

2009-05-11T20:06:00.000+01:00

7 Ways to Assess Effectively FOR Learning | Marmara Elt Resources

GCSE science 'dumbed down', says exam watchdog - Education News, Education - The Independent

2009-03-27T21:53:00.000Z

GCSE science 'dumbed down', says exam watchdog - Education News, Education - The Independent

Harold Jarche » Informal learning works for new hires

2009-03-11T20:08:00.001Z

Harold Jarche » Informal learning works for new hires

Warwick Mansell: The evidence shows testing is unnecessary - Schools, Education - The Independent

2009-03-04T19:45:00.000Z

Warwick Mansell: The evidence shows testing is unnecessary - Schools, Education - The Independent: "In last year's Select Committee inquiry into exams, the Government was the only one of 52 respondents to defend the current system. Ranged against it in recent years have been the select committee itself, the Children's Society, the Royal Society and a host of other scientific organisations, the Cambridge University-based Primary Review, at least one major exam board, teachers' unions and many others. Even Ofsted and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority have highlighted problems. The central argument is that holding teachers to account for their pupils' performance through a series of narrowly-focused, often predictable, tests has damaged children's deeper understanding."

MindMapping

2009-03-03T23:47:00.000Z

Nothing new under the sun… At least I thought so until recently, when I had to cover horrendous lesson with one cheesy dated and American (in the way, how they present things, like they have just discovered new world) video. Except these facts and that it was lower set year 11 absolutely not interested and I would add offended by the way how it was presented, I think it was actually great resource. Not for year 11 and probably not as classroom – rather teacher’s tool. The reason is the great way, how to make notes on lectures and text from the book.

Almost every student today knows how to use mind map for brainstorming and revision. But I have never seen it using for notes taking. And it is soooo obvious. Title as the main idea in the middle. Subtitles/keywords as branches resp. sub-branches and then some details, more relationships etc. I had a go with Y7 today to make notes on topic from geography this way – well. I am not sure whether my instructional approach worked with everybody (some mind maps they made were just with one level of keywords), but as I plan to add it to my repertoire, I believe, they will become more accomplished (and I will improve my instructions).

It also reminded me, that I keep forgetting, that sometimes I can make students more confused. My instructions are not as clear as I think they are. Another personal/professional target…

No more ‘Summative Purpose’?

2009-03-01T17:21:00.000Z

Reading material for my course I found an article arguing for change in terminology or better for shift in terminology in assessment. It all became more clear now, however, I do not know, whether to start using new terminology in my essay and further writing, or keep the old one, standard and used by many authors before.

What is it all about? Paul E. Newton in Clarifying the purposes of educational assessment argues, that words Assessment, Summative assessment, Formative assessment or construction like summative and formative purposes are not defined clearly and causes confusion. There is traditional way in looking at formative assessment as opposite to summative assessment. However Mr.. Newton says, that those two terms are from different categories, therefore they cannot stand in opposite.

1. claim – assessment is a judgment. Can be done with different purposes in mind and different methods can be used. (Stop using formative, summative etc.?)

2. claim – there is no formative judgment (Formative assessment), but there is an assessment with formative purpose or many other purposes, depending on how we use information gained from the judgment.

3. claim - There is no summative purpose. Assessment can be summative, descriptive, norm-referenced, criterion referenced… depending what date and in what form we are collecting.

So there should be distinction between purpose of the assessment based on the use we put the data in (formative, diagnostic, system monitoring) and the judgment which can be based on the continuum between summative (using quantitative terms) and descriptive (using qualitative terms).

In that case, according to Mr. Newton we can avoid confusion in using summative data for formative purposes or any other purposes, or using descriptive data for that sake too.

Traditionally the main difference between summative and formative was in timing and use. Formative being used during the learning process and summative at the end. And Formative was about using data to enhance learning, to help student etc. Summative was more about collecting data about the achievement. But apparently in new literature (and more importantly in classroom) this timing distinction is no more valid. Summative data can be used for formative purposes not only at the end, as we collect data on prediction and can use them to intervene, if somebody is underachieving. This means we use summative data during the process of learning…

4th seminar – Peer and Self Assessment

2009-02-28T22:12:00.000Z

I was looking forward to this seminar for two reasons: 1) Peer assessment is heavily used in my school and I wondered, whether is done right and what are the findings about peer and self assessment in research. 2) I had dilemma about terminology, I mentioned earlier on this Blog (No more ‘summative purpose’).

Peer and self assessment is very strong in AfL as according to some research, when are students involved in peer assessment and receive training on how to do it, their learning gains are almost 50% higher than control groups. And this is a lot. So even if not done professionally and as experiment, but in normal classroom setting, the results still must be pretty impressive.

There is however a difference between peer assessment and peer marking. If students just follows teachers marking scheme and give grades or comments on what is wrong, there is no learning. This is not peer assessment.

The biggest benefit of this type of learning I see in internalisation of success criteria. Bu this will not happen just by displaying them. Even teachers need training to became good assessors. The same our students. Modelling, examples, success criteria, teacher’s moderation and guidance are necessary to make this work.

Some more info on research:

http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=2415&language=en-US

Cultural Change

2009-02-26T14:50:00.000Z

Since I was introduced to Assessment for Learning I was always intrigued by how would it work in Slovakia. I was aware of obstacles represented by differences in school system and culture and the way student work. And also by the differences in curriculum. But still, Would it work in Slovakia?

I think yes, it would. I even think it would work even better than here in England. Overly optimistic? Probably I am, because I feel, that many schools and teachers in Slovakia are lacking the potential to change and willingness to take the risk. Overcoming this obstacle, AfL could thrive. What makes me say that?

Teacher is more independent about assessment and judgments he makes in the class. Therefore can implement many aspects of AfL without risk of failure in high-stake tests, which make many teachers in the UK teaching to test.
Different kind of paperwork, no student tracking and reports etc. therefore more time to create made to measure system for class or whole school.
Traditionally good student-teacher relationship and less hassle with classroom management, which gives more learning time to try out things.
Usually strong emphasis on homework and learning from lesson to lesson and home preparation for school. This is great opportunity for feedback planning, self and peer-assessment and many other aspects of AfL.

What else needs to be overcome?

AfL is hard to implement for just one person. Willingness to collaborate with teachers in the same school and with other school is necessary. But teachers usually do not discuss their assessment strategies.
Grades. Probably most difficult to overcome. Schools, teachers and parents are not ready to abandon grades. Well Keep them. They are part of assessment – summative one. But use them less (some teachers give approximately 11 grades in one week in one class!) and use them after feedback and other intervention took place.
Rota learning. I admit, that I see it as occasionally good way of learning. How would you learn for test? Still rota learning does not have to be rota testing too.
Training. All is good, to persuade teachers al over the world about benefits of AfL, but how to implement? How to ask open ended questions, how to plan, give feedback? When? And also how to retain good practice or abandon ideas, which are not working for us?

The water needed to produce common goods and beverages | Thirsty work | The Economist

2009-02-25T20:15:00.001Z

The water needed to produce common goods and beverages | Thirsty work | The Economist

In what ways can assessment contribute to school improvement in Slovakia?

2009-02-24T20:58:00.000Z

There are many areas which school can focus on to improve its overall quality. Probably the most important however is ‘teaching and learning’. This is what school is about. Place where teaching and most importantly learning takes place.

Traditionally, as in many other countries no matter what tradition or culture, learning was happening to the students by teaching. So they came to school to be taught. Today, based on evidence and sometimes on fashion too, there is a shift from this view. There ought to be less teaching or teaching should transform into facilitating learning and learning ought to be active process. Learning is done by learners not to them and it is their responsibility too.

This requires new approach to delivery and instruction. Luckily Slovakia does not have high stake tests and accountability, which means, that it is much easier to take risk and try new ways of teaching and assessment. Interestingly enough, there is very little evidence, that Slovak teachers are innovative and do try new ideas in the area of teaching methods. (please, let me know if I am wrong) They stay rather within tradition and conservatisms.

It seems today, that this could mean staying also on the bottom of PISA and TIMMS tables (which might not be most important) and compromise the quality of education, thus quality of life of future generation. New school reform (being too fast, and maybe to some extent under designed) had this in the mind. On the paper it calls for new approaches, innovative and modern methods. The question is what are they? Probably the reform documents cannot define these methods and approaches, as this is not the area of legislation. Ministry and other agencies though should have some idea of what they are asking for. Teacher will not try new method not knowing, if it works and just because minister wants him to… especially if nobody knows what the New Methods are. And how they work, and what to do to make them work.

This can be illustrated in the area of assessment, where new state educational programme and example of school educational programme call for more effective ways of assessment than oral examination in front of the class. What is more effective?

Tests? Because you can assess all class at once? Test measures only parts of achievement and they need to be designed well to measure more than just knowledge. How many teachers in are trained to design tests valid and reliable? And how many of them have time to do it?

Projects? They can measure skills and effort, and some of key competencies but fail to measure knowledge. Our curriculum is still driven by knowledge and by close examination of new school programmes it will remain so for long time.

What else have we got readily available for assessment in Slovak schools? Not much more than some presentations, writing essays and reports etc. But how do you mark these? It might be clear for people from Anglo-American tradition, where clear criteria and rubrics are sort of a norm. Not so in Slovakia where, except languages, marking essay is rather intuitive.

Where to start then, to improve school? Using ideas from Assessment for Learning (AfL) and taking some risk we can impose some change and even answer the call of the reform for innovation. AfL has few main principles, which when transformed and applied to Slovak system. Most important drives of improvement I can see in sharing success criteria, effective feedback and peer assessment.

Success criteria

This would not be too big shift from current practice, but still would require some change in point of view. Many teachers share learning objectives and students will know what is expected from them to be successful when answering. But it in mostly knowledge, learning objectives (as brief analysis of school educational programmes shows) are mostly what teacher does, what he explains and stresses as important and what students will know. Content, content content. It is very likely that successful and able students and those, who have no problems with memorising will be very successful. Those less able will struggle.

Let’s go back to basics and look at Bloom’s taxonomy of learning objective and sit down and write clear criteria for success. What student will know? Everything? Unlikely. So write it down like ability to write a list, name, compare, understand (How to show understanding?) … all active verbs and all about what student does. This will help to identify what learning intentions we have and communicate them clearly to less performing students. May be create rubrics with expectations and ask students to highlight where they thing they are. And this leads to another principle:

Feedback

Effective feedback leads to the action. It can be student telling me, that he is well ahead of far behind the class. It is worthless, is I do not act on this information. It can be me telling student that he has missed some important information, or misinterpreted something. Worthless, if it is last thing we do about it.

To apply this principle, there must exist clear information about expectation. So that both student and teacher know, where are they heading to, what is the objective. And based on that teacher provides information about the ‘gap’. What is missing. And also information about how to close the gap. what needs to be done. It does not to be done explicitly, so that teacher will in effect finish the work. Clue, question, example etc. could be sufficient. And it even does not need to be a teacher, who is giving this kind of feedback. It can be peer.

Peer-assessment

is third principle I want to draw attention to. When criteria for assessment are clear, than peer-assessment can drive achievement even higher, as even less performing students can participate in this process, thus internalise criteria and try to act on them. Of course this requires some training and time spent on practising.

Overall this three principles can lead to better achievement and improvement not only in learning, but in teaching too. And with system, where high stake test are rare and teachers exercise huge autonomy in what happens in the classroom (even if not in the area of content), there is little risk of changing this practice into ‘assessment as learning’, where criteria and standards are the drive of teaching (checklist of standards: can do- tick, cannot do – this is what you must do to pass… ).

Why it works? Why it does not?

2009-02-22T12:50:00.000Z

Still working on my assignment and searching materials I can use… More I read, more curious I get whether Assessment for Learning works always, or the evidence is so strong, because of ‘novelty effect’. I don’t mean because it is new concept (term ‘formative evaluation’ is from 60ties, I think), but because it is new for particular classroom/individual teacher and so they do everything to make it work. What makes me saying that is the evidence from Ofsted – fact that AfL, after strong support and national strategy initiatives, still is weak and does not work in many schools. (see my previous post on Ofsted Report)

Is that because these schools seen they priorities somewhere else or did not have change/improvement potential (the staff and leadership were not ready to change)?

I feel like I need to find some more info on school improvement / influence of different initiatives etc. (Does Assessment for Learning work because it is new initiative and people are enthusiastic so any new initiative would work the same way?)

And also I am struggling to get some material on assessment published in Slovakia or related to our school system or system similar to ours (Czech, Hungarian). Assessment for Learning literature is mostly in English therefore very likely from similar cultural context. Will it work in our context? How to implement? This are just few questions I need to get my head around.

Meet Tarun Kapur, the headmaster of Parrs Wood... Ashton-on-Mersey... and Broadoak schools - Education News, Education - The Independent

2009-02-21T18:36:00.000Z

Meet Tarun Kapur, the headmaster of Parrs Wood... Ashton-on-Mersey... and Broadoak schools - Education News, Education - The Independent

Grading

2009-02-20T16:35:00.001Z

Following previous post on assessment practice I want to add some info on grades and grading:

Grades in Slovakia are either in numbers on the scale 1 – 5 of words, equivalent to this scale:

= Excellent
= Very good
= Good
= Satisfactory
= Unsatisfactory

These are given for academic achievement in graded subject and are used both in continuous assessment and in end of term/end of year certificates (Or in end of school/qualification certificates too). Of course this scale is not enough to measure all kinds of performances and activity during lessons. Many teachers therefore have some additional system or add some + or – to the grade, or as a merit. Or they give grade as 2/3 which mathematically is less then 1, therefore should mean better grade, but for the teachers and students in Slovakia for decades it meant something between 2 and 3. (I was graded like that and I myself used to grade my students the same way)

In Ministry of Education Guidance on Assessment (*.zip in Slovak Language ) the grades are as follows

Grade 1 (excellent)
if the pupil masters the knowledge, concepts and patterns according to the curriculum and can readily use them in his/her intellectual, motoric and other practical activities. Independently and creatively applies knowledge and key competences in solving various tasks, evaluation of events and patterns. His oral and written language is correct, accurate. Graphic expression is aesthetic. Results of the activities are good, with only minor shortcomings.
Grade 2 (good)
if the pupil masters the knowledge, concepts and patterns according to the curriculum and they can readily use them. He/She has adopted core competencies that apply to the creative, intellectual, motoric and other practical activities. He/she adopted the key knowledge and competence in dealing with various tasks, evaluation of events and patterns independently and creatively or with minor help from the teacher. His oral and written language has minor deficiencies in accuracy, precision and relevancy. Graphic expression is aesthetic, without any major inaccuracies. Results of the activities are good, without major shortcomings.
Level 3 (good)
if the pupil has irrelevant gaps in the accuracy, integrity and completeness of acquired knowledge, concepts and principles according to the curriculum and in their use. It has adopted core competencies that he/she uses in intellectual, motoric, and other practical activities with minor shortcomings. At the instigation of the teacher applies the core knowledge and competencies in dealing with various tasks, assessment of events and patterns. Student knows how to correct significant errors and inaccuracies with the teacher help. In oral and written language he/she has shortcomings in the correctness, accuracy, relevancy. Graphic expression is less aesthetic. The quality of the results of its activities are often gaps.
Level 4 (satisfactory)
if the pupil has serious gaps in the integrity, accuracy and completeness of acquired knowledge and principles of the curriculum as well as in the use of it. In addressing the theoretical and practical problems with implementation of key competencies are substantial errors. He/She is very dependant in the use of knowledge and evaluation of events. His oral and written language has serious shortcomings in the correctness, accuracy and relevancy. In the quality of the results of his actions and graphic expressions are errors, the work is a little aesthetic. He/she can correct serious errors and insufficient evidence with the help of teacher.
Level 5 (unsatisfactory),
if the student did not acquire required knowledge and curriculum, has serious gaps in them, therefore, he/she is unable to use them. In addressing the theoretical and practical problems with implementation of key competencies are found significant errors. He/She is very dependant in the use of knowledge, evaluation of events, and is unable to apply his/her knowledge even with the help of the teacher. His oral and written language has significant shortcomings in the correctness, accuracy and relevancy. The quality of the results of its operations and graphic expression is low.Student makes serious errors and fails to correct deficiencies with the help of a teacher.

(translated with help of GoogleTranslator)

In very few subject areas those broad descriptions were broken down into clear criteria. And of course teachers have to use their own judgment on what performance, result and work is grade 1 and which grade 5. Although it is less tricky with those two extreme grades than it is with those in the middle. Especially in situations, where student is slightly underperforming his usual self. Or over performing. Teacher is tempted to give higher grade.

And in terms of sharing this criteria with students, I dare to thing, that none of the teachers is using them/sharing them with their students.

Monitor on Psychology - Mini-multitaskers

2009-02-19T21:19:00.000Z

Monitor on Psychology - Mini-multitaskers: "In research published in 2001 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (Vol. 27, No. 4), Meyer and colleagues found that people lost time switching from one task to another. The amount of time they lost increased significantly as the tasks became more complex or unfamiliar."

bozarthzone: Sacred Training Cows

2009-02-18T16:11:00.000Z

bozarthzone: Sacred Training Cows

Assessment practice in Slovakia

2009-02-18T15:33:00.000Z

I am now in the process of writing my essay for the AfL course. The main focus will be in Assessment and improvement of teaching and learning in Slovakia. I started quite well with Ideas related to school reform in Slovakia and questions how this can affect assessment system. There is very little notion of assessment in all reform documents, except some general recommendation and so it seems it would not change at all. Also as one my friend mentions he has briefly seen Ministry Guidance on Assessment five years ago… So probably he is not aware of new one from January 2009 and therefore it will have little impact on his practice, if any at all.

Teachers in Slovakia have quite large independence in terms of assessment and there are very little accountability and high stake testing, to take into account. It is traditional approach, which luckily remained in new system. Teachers mostly assess the knowledge or performance or the outcome (depending on the subject) either verbally or by teacher-created test (there is very little instruction on tests design in teacher training though).

Each subject has a list of standards with competences and knowledge expected form every student in particular year and using this standards, but largely using professional knowledge based on experience, teacher assess students by giving a grade on scale between 1-5(1 being excellent, 5 being unsatisfactory). Roughly a decade ago, some schools and teachers experimentally started with verbal grading/ verbal assessment only. This however is not supported by many teachers and society in general. There is an legal obstacle as higher secondary sector cannot use this verbal assessment and requires grades in admission process.

Assessment process is continuous one, where teacher selects individual students or assess whole class throughout the year. This results in selection of grades, which are a basics for end of term and end of year assessment – certificate, which is legal document (and even has to be given to students on certain date).

Grades 1-4 are pass grades (4 means satisfactory). Students who have more than two ‘unsatisfactory’ grades, failed this year and are hold back. They have to repeat whole year in all subjects. For those having one or two unsatisfactory grades, school and subject teacher has to provide additional mentoring program over summer and towards the end of summer (usually) they have exam in front of exam board named by headmaster from school teaching staff.

International GCSEs 'can be offered in state schools' - Telegraph

2009-02-17T22:42:00.000Z

International GCSEs 'can be offered in state schools' - Telegraph: "Ofqual, the Government's qualifications regulator, has officially approved International GCSEs for the first time.

The exams are already favoured in top independent schools as a more rigorous alternative to conventional tests - providing better preparation for A-level"

Britain has produced unteachable 'uber-chavs' - Telegraph

2009-02-16T22:41:00.000Z

Britain has produced unteachable 'uber-chavs' - Telegraph

Given this post, readers will be able to describe my perspective on course objectives to 100% accuracy | MinuteBio

2009-02-16T16:22:00.000Z

Given this post, readers will be able to describe my perspective on course objectives to 100% accuracy | MinuteBio:

"I think of them as a contract. It is an agreement between the content and the audience. And the assessment measures whether the contract was fulfilled."

Back to learning objectives. And their importance to assessment. Without knowing what your student ought to learn, you don't know what you ought to assess... and likewise if your students don't know what they should learn, they cannot prepare for assessment (they don't know what you going to assess...) How simple logic and common sense. The trouble is, we sometimes have problem to define, what ought to be learned, or how to assess it, or how to communicate the objective...

2009-02-14T22:01:00.000Z

Why is the dawn-to-dusk extended schools scheme failing the very families it is meant to help? | Society | The Guardian

2009-02-14T08:10:00.000Z

Why is the dawn-to-dusk extended schools scheme failing the very families it is meant to help? | Society | The Guardian: "Revolution blues

A radical plan to enrich the lives of disadvantaged children was launched with a fanfare in 2005. But why is it failing the very families it is meant to help? By Amelia Gentleman"

Teachers 'failing to spot' causes of bad behaviour | Education | The Guardian

2009-02-13T16:10:00.000Z

Teachers 'failing to spot' causes of bad behaviour | Education | The Guardian: "Bad behaviour in schools is being fuelled by teachers' failure to properly identify children with special educational needs, according to the government's chief adviser on school discipline.

Schools are labelling children as naughty when they have serious problems and have been failing to address the causes of disruptive behaviour, in some cases for years, according to Sir Alan Steer, a headteacher who has advised on behaviour issues in schools since 2005."

I sometimes think that children are naughty... you cannot label every naughty kid as SEN. Sometimes they are just naughty... SOMETIMES. And for the other cases yes, teachers are failing to identify SEN, as are people in social services and other agencies. People trained to recognise this cases. Training, education, support and time...

3rd Seminar - Feedback

2009-02-12T22:17:00.000Z

One of the topics, which are very vivid online. And very important for corporate, business, training and management worlds. And becomes ever more important in learning.

It raise came after very influential study from Israel, where in one experiment comment only feedback group performed best out of 3 groups – comment only, comment and grade and grade only group. This was only one study, one experiment done in Israel, therefore one must be very careful about its generalisation or transformation of the results in another cultural setting. But as our lectures said – worth paying attention to. And probably turning from ‘grades are important’ culture to ‘how you act to improve’ culture.

Than we tried to establish some basics features of effective feedback and ineffectual feedback and had practice session with example of students work, where we meant to give a feedback. This was probably the best and most important part of the seminar. For me at least, as it made me realise what thinking process I need to apply to provide effective feedback, how to word my comments and what activities will be the best for action. Definitely not an easy task…

Feedback in probably most important part of assessment for learning. The part, which can make greatest contribution toward successful implementation of AfL (when implementing AfL one need good quality feedback too;-).

In Learning setting it means that I know, where to concentrate my feedback, what to mark, as I cannot mark everything at once (assessment for different purposes) and it simply means that I know my learning objective and I success criteria (which is not the same). One of the good practice is to use questions to break success criteria down into plain English… Just then I can give feedback focused on my aims and with clear notions on how to improve. Thankfully we are moving from ‘praise them all’ to give them true picture.

Again, as with may things here, we can agree with theory, but how to turn it into effective practice?

If you have some really good practical suggestions, please share them in comments. Thanks.

Brain rules...

2009-02-10T08:54:00.000Z

Brain Rules for Presenters

View more presentations from garr. (tags: reynolds garr)

Assessment and School Improvement Mindmap

2009-02-09T21:14:00.000Z

While thinking about my Uni work and essay I decided to make a Mind Map to see the links between information I have and missing links or missing (incomplete) information. And by doing research on assessment methods I came across good webpage about assessment and methods of assessment linked to the skill, you might want to assess. And I used great mindmapping tool http://www.bubbl.us

Well and here is my mindmap:

Kapp Notes (Blog)

2009-02-06T20:34:00.000Z

Cool Level One Evaluation

As learning professionals, we are familiar with Donald Kirkpatrick and his four Levels of Evaluation.If you need to get up to speed, you can read an interview with him here.

I have never heard about four level of evaluation before, but surely I am going to spent some time on this. I love the pictures and I want to know more…

'Blessed' school learns a lesson

2009-02-05T20:27:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/7851890.stm

We don't have rules, we have respect, behaviour and uniform... we respect the teachers more and they respect us back

Thirst

2009-02-05T08:21:00.001Z

THIRST

View more presentations from Jeff Brenman. (tags: design crisis)

Brightest children 'failed by state school teachers who fear promoting elitism' - Telegraph

2009-02-04T09:24:00.000Z

Brightest children 'failed by state school teachers who fear promoting elitism' - Telegraph

how to succeed...

2009-02-03T23:04:00.000Z

Assessment for learning: the impact of National Strategy support

2009-02-03T19:47:00.000Z

This survey evaluated the impact of the National Strategies’ approaches to
assessment for learning in English and mathematics lessons across a sample of
primary and secondary schools. The impact on achievement and provision was no
better than satisfactory in almost two thirds of the schools visited. It was better
developed in primary than in secondary schools. Surveys of other subjects provided
additional evidence of its variable impact.

Quite alarming results and probably waste of money and resources too. It is based on survey in 43 schools in England, so it possibly is not the whole nation picture. But even so the findings show, that

In the less effective practice, teachers failed to understand sufficiently how the
approaches were meant to improve pupils’ achievement. Although schools valued
the training and support provided, good practice in assessment for learning did
not necessarily follow. Senior leaders did not maintain the momentum of
implementation, often moving on to other priorities before practice was secure.

I find AfL an amazing tool to improve achievement. And to enable pupils to become lifelong learners too. Especially when using peer and self-assessment.

So what the survey found and what can we learn from it.
1. The implementation of AfL is not easy process and even when it becomes initiative supported by government and many hours of training, it still can fail.
2. When AfL did not have great impact, it was seen by surveyors, that teachers did not implement strategies correctly or did not understand AfL.
3. Also there was a correlation between successful AfL practice and involvement of senior management.
4. Peer and self- assessment seems to be least used and implemented practice.
5.

Only three of the secondary schools showed they used assessment information
effectively to plan the curriculum and teachers’ setting of objectives

6. The highest impact of AfL was in the provision of SEN.

I am keen on AfL. The evidence shows that this is the right direction and can have huge impact not only on students, but on the teachers too. As I mentioned in one previous post there are thing I would like to export from British schools to Slovakia. AfL is one of them.

My academies may be failing, admits chief - Education News, Education - The Independent

2009-02-02T22:03:00.001Z

My academies may be failing, admits chief - Education News, Education - The Independent

What would I import into school in Slovakia

2009-02-02T11:15:00.000Z

Cultural shock would best describe my feelings, when I started to work in school in the UK almost three years ago. Since then I have gone a long way from rejecting, comparing, praising, hating or enjoying either features i missed from Slovakian schools of my place here. This was and still is a fantastic experience and no university or training could give so much.

Now, when I look back in my experience in Slovakia, I know what and how much I would miss, if I started to work there again. Here is my list (I do not mention the pay):

Commitment of the teachers and the way school can use their time.
Teachers in the UK are employed on different basis and schools pay for certain amount of working hours, they spent. Therefore can decide how this time can be used during school day or after school. In Slovakia we have given amount of teaching hours and equivalent of non contact time. If teacher's lesson finish at 12 o'clock, he or she is usually free to go home. Very few teachers give up their time to stay longer at school.

Tutor time
It is small amount of time. 15 min three times a week in the morning. and it can make such a difference. I would introduce this instead of tutor time in form of rolling tutor once a fortnight. This gives tutor time and opportunity to react on any issues raised day before, give last minute notices, speak to tutees and manage the administration of the group on the go.

Briefings
Much better than staff meetings. Happens in the morning three times a week and gives overview of what is happening in the school, opportunity to pass notices to the student, inform about events either past or future ones etc...

Permanent classrooms for teacher
In Slovakia teaching group is fixed and has permanent base in one classroom. The group moves only to go to PE or a special lab. Teacher moves around. Although it seems a difficult task to move so many pupils around, it gives teacher a benefit - opportunity to stay in the class and welcome students, making the classroom his/her personal space, has resources ready and no need to carry everything around (Students have their own books, so teacher does not need to carry these)...

Behaviour management
Use of different methods of praise and punishment and clear rules. Also the information route, where everyone concerned is posted without the need to spent time to repeat the same information few times. And the steps in the use of detentions and exclusions. Slovakia does not know exclusion (expulsion is possible but rare) and after school detentions are rare. Break or lunch time detentions do not exist...

The use of receptions and admin staff
Something rather expensive for the schools in Slovakia, but the impression on the visitors and the help when there is somebody, who can deal with emergency situation from first aid, through calls and letters and photo copying is invaluable.

Target and goal setting and assessment towards them not only towards attainment levels
The fact that here even when you give just one grade or level you actually assess students in two different ways is fantastic. An eye opener for me. The grade tells where he/she stands against standard and levels, but it tells also whether he has been working hard and made an improvement or not. The existence of personal target is so personalised and helps to give the right feed back. I believe the motivation is strong here. And the element of personal responsibility too.

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Legendary British warship 'found'

2009-02-01T23:06:00.001Z

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Legendary British warship 'found': "Legendary British warship 'found'

A US-based salvage firm is believed to have found remains from the wreck of a legendary British warship which sank in the English Channel in 1744."

This is why Britain is a failing nation - Telegraph

2009-01-31T12:17:00.000Z

This is why Britain is a failing nation - Telegraph

eLearn: Best Practices

2009-01-30T13:40:00.000Z

eLearn: Best Practices
Learning organizations are proficient at two types of learning: "adaptive" learning and "generative" learning. To survive, an organization must solve short-term problems. This is the realm of adaptive learning. But, what sets learning organizations apart from other institutions is generative learning. Generative learning enhances the capacity to create. Senge describes the foundations of a learning organization, as generative learning requiring the mastery of five disciplines:
Systems Thinking (The discipline that integrates the other four)
Personal Mastery
Shared Vision
Mental Models
Team Learning
I was immediately struck by its relevance for teaching in virtual classrooms. Two related ideas occurred to me: 1) A successful online class is a microcosm of a learning organization; and 2) Virtual team projects are instrumental in achieving an online course's learning objectives as they create a vibrant interaction between students and the instructor and among students. These interactions overcome the solitary nature of online instruction.

BBC NEWS | Education | 'Too many' cannot read and write

2009-01-30T11:27:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Education | 'Too many' cannot read and write

Informal Learning Becomes Formal - elearnspace

2009-01-29T10:31:00.000Z

Informal Learning Becomes Formal - elearnspace

Assessment and school improvement in Slovakia (may be start of my essay for AfL course)

2009-01-28T21:18:00.004Z

School improvement can happen in many ways from building development and equipment through management up to behaviour and parents involvement. However the most important and probably most looked at area is the

attainment the students. Assessment is integral part of teaching and learning, and formative assessment even more so, as it does not happen at the end but during the learning process.

Following the evidence from international studies, we can believe, that assessment for learning does raise students attainment and understanding. Therefore this will be the area of the school, which can be improved by good application of AfL principles into practice.

Now what does it mean school improvement and raise of standards in the context of Slovak schools. Unlike British system with more transparent and published Ofsted reports, league tables, Sats results etc. Slovakia does not have the culture of comparing schools or measure school performance. From this point of view it is difficult to point at whole school performance and claim, that it will improve as a result of good AfL programme.

However the national Monitor of Math and Slovak Language proficiency, number of absolvents accepted at good FE institutions, or even (may be more importantly) such subjective criteria as students enjoyment can measure whole school improvement.

Year 2008 saw the introduction of a new national curriculum and re-articulation of national aims in education in Slovakia. This brings new challenges and opportunities: All plans and schemes of will have to go through very careful revision. And as Planning is the vital part of AfL, this is a good opportunity to put this into practice. And to review school policies on assessment and planning and make AfL a part of school life.

Assessment in Slovakia is mostly for summative/diagnostic purposes and usually does not involve any outside agencies until year 9, where national monitor of Slovak Language and Mats takes place. Even compulsory tests and pieces of work can be left on the teacher’s discretion. In theory teacher assess student’s knowledge or skill against standard given in national curriculum and gives a grade. Half way through the year and then again at the end of school year this grades are the basics for an overall grade.

There are many dangers in this system of assessing students. Teacher is the one, who knows and understands the standards and success criteria. And this understanding can vary from teacher to teacher, so someone seen as good student here can be seen as mediocre in different school. Also the
use of grades as punishment or reward became quite common practice as well as great emphasis on knowledge and facts as this is very easy to measure. So those students, who are good at memorizing facts and behave well are more likely to success than those with learning difficulties
or behaviour problems.

The Big Question: Is the success of specialist schools an illusion resulting from extra funding? - Education News, Education - The Independent

2009-01-28T10:34:00.000Z

The Big Question: Is the success of specialist schools an illusion resulting from extra funding? - Education News, Education - The Independent:

"findings, published by the Gatsby Foundation, they reveal that a pupil attending a music specialist school was more likely to get an A grade in physics at A-level than a pupil attending a specialist science school. In fact, the specialist science school only came fourth in the league table for science A-level results - behind modern foreign languages and maths and computing specialist schools as well. The figures were 36 per cent attaining A grades in music schools, 26.5 per cent in language schools, 24.4 per cent in maths and computing and 23.7 per cent in science.

Why was this so?"
...

Diary of a Fresher: 'Perhaps the real purpose of uni is to facilitate growing up' - Higher, Education - The Independent

2009-01-27T10:42:00.000Z

Diary of a Fresher: 'Perhaps the real purpose of uni is to facilitate growing up' - Higher, Education - The Independent

Second Seminar: AfL - Planning

2009-01-26T11:25:00.000Z

Although it was good seminar and full of questions and discussion, it left me a bit puzzled. It might be, that my expectation of that course were more practice than theory orientated.
Following a results of study of progress of American Kindergarten Children (Black and William, 1998) we have looked in the importance of planning for Assessment for Learning. One of most important messages was the need to 'analyse what knowledge and skills learners need to do the task (experiment, research etc.)'.
In short there is a good evidence that if we analyse previous knowledge and needs of our learners and build our teaching on that, we are very likely to enhance learning experience and learning gains. It is kind of obvious (but many of us need to be told this obvious things sometimes, don't we)... the more important question is How do we do it? Because once I realised how important and good idea it is, I want to know how to use it in practice and how to gain skills.
I sat down (waiting for my train back home) noted down some ideas:

Planning is important for every project
AfL is about baseline assessment, questioning, feedback, peer/self-assessment, sharing success criteria.
AfL uses this to inform future practice, and use feedback for feed forward purpose.

How do you start?

by realising your learning aims?
by evaluation of success criteria?
By study of level description and previous attainment of your learners (if available)?

I came with some suggestion in that process, which highlights some of main characteristics of AfL:

need to have the idea of what your aim and learning outcome is.
this will define your success criteria and path to achievement
design activities which will lead to desirable outcomes
plan baseline test (taking prior knowledge into account) - this is tricky one as it makes assumption of what they already know, or should know.
plan assessment activities - time and methods and possible interventions.
do not finalise this plans until you have done pre-assessment or pre-test. you need to adjust all your plans based on this.

Suggestions from the seminar:
Contingency planning - question to expose learners current knowledge designed to lead to certain number of possibilities and plan for same number of activities to bring all learners to the same level.
Concept mapping/brainstorming - exposure of current ideas of a group.
Baseline assessment - pre-testing, using traffic lights, check list etc.

2009-01-25T20:14:00.000Z

Big Dog, Little Dog: Training

2009-01-18T13:18:00.000Z

Big Dog, Little Dog: Training

Training is Dead, Long Live Training

Pupils learn to mentor fellow students | Education | guardian.co.uk

2009-01-14T23:56:00.000Z

Pupils learn to mentor fellow students | Education | guardian.co.uk

Inset Day

2009-01-14T12:00:00.001Z

We just had the INSET day couple of days ago - well straight after the holiday. I find this an amazing idea of starting the work at school after holiday. You get chance to catch up, chat with people, be more casual and most importantly tune in into the work. So your next day, day with students in is definitely less stressful.

There were few interesting things on that day. Behaviour for Learning as one of them. Well, many will say, that this is too worn, too old and very little new we can hear. That is right. Most of the ideas about consistency, boundaries, humor and mutual respect etc. are old. And they are coming back again and again. And that is what is important. May be that session wasn't anything new or groundbreaking. But it was - consistent. And there was the opportunity to refresh, re-motivate ourselves...

SEAL - or as (apparently) they are going to call it again - Social and Emotional Aspect of Learning. Again, maybe this is nothing new there, but still, it is worth as we can see thing again and maybe from different point of view. And get the chance to see how other people might see the problems.

The last session was about How to use Teaching Assistants in the lesson effectively. Something I was looking forward to (It doesn't apply to me directly as I do not plan the lessons, but I want to know a bit more). There were two information I have learned:

We do not know what impact TA have on students' results. (No research has been done on that)
The best model to use (from the video we have seen) is TA gets told what is going to happen and what resources need to be made... No direct involvement in planning and no creativity of professionalism (of TA) used. Good as a starting point. But is that really where we want to be at the end?

Anyway this is back to school now and all busy already.

eLearn: Feature Article

2009-01-13T14:18:00.000Z

eLearn: Feature Article

How to Sell Yourself into an Online Teaching Position
By Errol Craig Sull

Participation in online learning takes many forms: instructor, supervisor, course designer, registrar, tech support—the list goes on. No matter what your background, if you decide to teach your first course—or seek additional teaching gigs—you must learn how to effectively sell yourself as the ideal instructor for a particular school. Of course, teacher requirements vary substantially with the institution. But after teaching online courses for 13 years, conducting national workshops on distance learning, and receiving feedback on my related writings over the years, I've assembled a list of broad-based tips, techniques, and requirements for scoring that online teaching gig:

Wired Campus: Students Watch Lecture Videos in Fast Forward - Chronicle.com

2009-01-12T14:30:00.000Z

Wired Campus: Students Watch Lecture Videos in Fast Forward - Chronicle.com

Ten education reforms to improve social mobility - Telegraph

2009-01-11T23:57:00.001Z

Ten education reforms to improve social mobility - Telegraph

After First Seminar...

2009-01-11T22:58:00.002Z

of my course I started at Uni I am so pleased I started it and I was impressed with all we have done there. Theory with lots of questions and discussion and hands on experience.

The course is on assessment for learning. I knew a lot about it. But this was like breaking it down and rebuilding the knowledge from different perspective and with some experience - with thinking How To Do It? instead of What Is It?

I didn't know that it assessment for learning is (or could be) interchangeable with 'Formative Assessment'. I have learned about formative assessment before. But it was all theory without links to practice. And I didn't know that this topic is big just ten years now. Now I am thinking about my teacher training in Slovakia an tying to recall if we had something similar on that. I need to go through my lecture notes and books (summer job?).

During this seminar I have learned a lot about effects of AfL and the big difference in how it is done in comparison with Assessment Of Learning (Summative Assessment). And I have realised that it definitely is not about data and measuring performance by grades or levels. It is about the process of teaching - about the delivery of content. Assessment of prior knowledge and understanding to adjust plan and tailor the content. Feedback by questioning and self or peer-assessment not to mark, but again to assure that the teaching delivers what is needed, what will close the gaps.

And it is about using data for the same purpose too.

eLearn: Feature Article

2009-01-10T14:11:00.000Z

Ten Web 2.0 Things You Can Do in Ten Minutes to Be a More Successful E-learning Professional

By Stephen Downes, National Research Council Canada

The following list was inspired by eLearn Magazine Editor-in-Chief Lisa Neal's blog post "Ten Things You Can Do in Ten Minutes To Be a More Successful e-learning Professional." We'd like to offer the "Web 2.0 Edition" of Lisa's list:

eLearn: Feature Article

Assessment for Learning: Putting It into Practice

2009-01-10T12:00:00.001Z

Book by Paul Black, Christine Harrison, Clare Lee, Bethan Marshall, Dylan Wiliam; Open University Press, 2003.

135 pgs.

An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information to
be used as feedback by teachers, and by their students in assessing
themselves and each other, to modify the teaching and learning
activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes formative
assessment when the evidence is used to adapt the teaching work to meet
learning needs. Formative assessment can occur many times in every
lesson. It can involve several different methods for encouraging
students to express what they are thinking and several different ways
of acting on such evidence. It has to be within the control of the
individual teacher and, for this reason, change in formative assessment
practice is an integral and intimate part of a teacher's daily work.(Black et al. 2)

http://www.questia.com/read/113690812#

Book that finally made me understand what is meant by AfL in practice. Most of the time, especially when discussed by colleagues at school, this was about data and how data inform targets and intervention. Which is important too. But how do you gather data, how do you intervene, how do you make it meaningful for Y7 students?

In the picture with other books I read recently it makes more sense. Teachers talk, body language, giving feedback, asking questions, teaching students to assess themself and their peers...

BBC NEWS | Education | Lessons 'tougher for male staff'

2009-01-09T12:03:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Education | Lessons 'tougher for male staff'

Old-fashioned story books 'better for children than electronic learning gadgets' - Telegraph

2009-01-07T14:20:00.001Z

... just a common sense. we have to be around our children, show the love, interest, teach them to be curious, grateful and have fun...

Old-fashioned story books 'better for children than electronic learning gadgets' - Telegraph

eLearn: Opinions

2009-01-06T13:12:00.000Z

The e-Learning Rules of Engagement
By Mark Notess, Indiana University

The word "engagement" is often used in connection with e-learning—so often, in fact, that it has come to represent a general, warm fuzziness that everyone wants but which proves elusive. But what does engagement really mean? Let's examine some of the ways the term is used in connection with online learning.
A property of materials. Promotional literature for learning materials often makes claims about how engaging a particular product is. This can refer to anything from pictures to animations to simulations, or to some supposed relevance of the materials to the learner. When we say materials are engaging, we are saying they have properties intended to stimulate use or interest by learners. But can engagement reside entirely in materials? If an e-learning course is engaging, but no one takes that course, where is the engagement?

...

eLearn: Opinions

Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web - ReadWriteWeb

2009-01-05T11:09:00.000Z

Gen Y is taking over. The generation of young adults that's composed of the children of Boomers, Generation Jones, and even some Gen X'ers, is the biggest generation since the Baby Boomers and three times the size of Gen X. As the Boomers fade into retirement and Gen Y takes root in the workplace, we're going to see some big changes ahead, not just at work, but on the web as a whole.

There's some contention over where exactly Gen Y starts and stops - some say those born 1983-1997, others think 1982-1997. In this week's Entertainment Weekly, Gen Y is defined as "current 13 to 31 year-olds" and BusinessWeek says they can be as young as five. Regardless, we know who they are - they're the young kids of today, the most digitally active generation yet, having been born plugged in.

Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web - ReadWriteWeb

Why School is Bad

2009-01-04T21:17:00.000Z

there might be truth somewhere hidden...

StumbleUpon WebToolbar - Why School is Bad

Connecting Character to Conduct: Helping Students Do the Right Things

2009-01-03T23:48:00.001Z

Book by Rita Stein, Roberta Richin, Richard Banyon, Francine Banyon, Marc Stein; Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2000. 137 pgs.

Although the Centerville School District is a composite of sev- eral schools we've worked with, we are using authentic examples and experiences to show how you can implement respect, impulse control, compassion, and equity in your school. We organized each chapter of this book to illustrate how a typical school district can use the content of the curriculum; the structure of the school day; the sequence of the school year; and the counseling, discipline, and safety practices to provide all members of the school community with meaningful opportunities to use RICE (respect, impulse control, compassion, and equity). From the hallway to the classroom, the athletic program to the parent-teacher conference, and through each step of professional development, we illustrate how a school district can use the character and conduct approach to help students learn and stay safe. ¹

¹ Rita Stein, Roberta Richin, Richard Banyon, Francine Banyon, and Marc Stein, Connecting Character to Conduct: Helping Students Do the Right Things (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2000) 6, Questia, 3 Jan. 2009 .

Interesting book about one fictional school (with real examples and following rules and procedures from real schools) and its way to create meaningful and safe learning environment. Good to consider with other systems or methods. What it shows is, that to maintain successful school we need set of values and rules everyone would follow and our approach need to be planned and thought through. And shared with whole community. Good resource of ideas and tips or as a start for planning new system at school. But it is not only about discipline or values. It's about communication, willingness to help and being engaged and about motivation too. And probably most importantly motivation of the teachers and parents. They need to be ready to step out of comfort zone and try something new.

Connecting Character to Conduct: Helping Students Do the Right Things

2009-01-03T16:46:00.000Z

Now on LinkedIn too

LinkedIn

'Indulgent' parents fuelling bad behaviour in classroom - Telegraph

2009-01-03T12:37:00.000Z

"Comments support a popular notion that parents and society have become over child-centred and preoccupied with 'rights' rather than responsibilities,' said the report. 'There is a view that some children believe they are irreproachable as a result. The two most common attributions are therefore linked as many teachers blame parents for acting as bad role models in the way they interact with teachers and other forms of authority."

'Indulgent' parents fuelling bad behaviour in classroom - Telegraph

Xixixi. When I was teaching back in Slovakia, we used to complaint about this, although the behaviour wasn't so bad. But still there were some parents who could not bear the fact, that their child made something wrong. It will be everyvhere the same I suppose, and it depends on the school policy, consistency and the ways of communication. What do you think?

Phoebe — pedagogic planner

2009-01-02T21:24:00.000Z

Phoebe — pedagogic planner: "Phoebe is a web application designed to provide inspiration and practical support for learning design."

Lessons to be learnedoutside the classroom - Liverpool Echo.co.uk

2009-01-02T18:01:00.000Z

TEACHERS in England will have to act as ‘role models’ both in and out of school under a proposed new code of conduct.

Why should we expect anything less?

Being forced to act as role model. Well this would expect that we have common set of values, which allow us to create some kind of unity. I cannot see this happening. Even goverment does not act as having one set of values, but rather different and contradictive ones... Let's see how will it work.
Lessons to be learnedoutside the classroom - Liverpool Echo.co.uk

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Slovakia becomes eurozone member

2009-01-01T17:58:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Slovakia becomes eurozone member

Education preview for 2009 - Telegraph

2009-01-01T17:49:00.000Z

Education preview for 2009 - Telegraph

e-Learning Centre by Learning Light

2008-12-30T20:57:00.000Z

e-Learning Centre by Learning Light: "Access a vast collection of selected and reviewed links to e-Learning resources."

eLearn: Feature Article

2008-12-30T14:39:00.000Z

Predictions for 2008
By Lisa Neal, Editor-in-Chief, eLearn Magazine

eLearn: Feature Article

Schools Olympics

2008-12-30T12:44:00.000Z

Tories propose schools Olympics - Telegraph

eLearning Learning

2008-12-29T21:04:00.000Z

eLearning Learning: "eLearning Learning is a community that tries to collect and organize the best information on the web that will help you learn and stay current on eLearning.
If you would like to be included and or participate, please contact:Tony Karrer"

Global forum launched to show importance of effective use of technology in education :: PublicTechnology.net :: e-Government & public sector IT news + job vacancies:

2008-12-29T11:56:00.000Z

The Learning and Technology World Forum, hosted by Becta, in partnership with BESA (British Educational Suppliers Association) and the British Council, takes place from 12 to 14 January 2009 at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London, to coincide with BETT, the educational technology show at Olympia, 14-17 January. More information on the forum is available at the Learning and Technology World Forum website. It is being launched in partnership with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). Major sponsors include Cisco, Intel and Microsoft.

links to this article:
Global forum launched to show importance of effective use of technology in education :: PublicTechnology.net :: e-Government & public sector IT news + job vacancies

How to Master Screencasts in Seven Steps

2008-12-28T22:31:00.001Z

How to Master Screencasts in Seven Steps
October 22, 2008 - 1:58 pm PDT - by Torley 12 Comments

Making screencasts (also known as “video tutorials”) is already easy, and becomes easier with better tools and broadband proliferation. However, no tech is complete without a human who dives in, does experiments, and discerns best practices from the results.

I’ve made over 200 video tutorials, mostly for the virtual world of Second Life, and I’ve also done tutorials for stuff like YouTube and Sony Vegas. If a picture’s a 1,000 words, then a video is… a LOT more.

How to Master Screencasts in Seven Steps:

Improving literacy and numeracy

2008-12-28T16:12:00.001Z

Improving literacy and numeracy

Experts express support for learning age extension

2008-12-28T09:46:00.000Z

NUT on the Web:

Parliament last month passed a bill that will result in all teenagers
remaining in education or training until the age of 18 from 2015.

This will first be rolled out until the age of 17 in 2013.

Well I am not sure about this move. For many it will be really unpleasant christmas gift from the goverment. Although I think that all teenagers should stay in education and get higher qualification than GCSE, I am very against forcing anybody to do so. On the continent you can find very few (if any) coutries, where education is compulsory beyond 16. And still the numbers of students droping the school is significantly lower. Why is that?

I can use an example fom my home country - Slovakia (not suggesting, that our education system is or was better though). In Slovakia and Czech Republic the compulsory age is 16, but secondary school ends at 15 (there are no GCSE exams and if you perform really badly you can be held behind and finish at 16 ) and students have one more year to go. So you have to choose college, Gymnazium (form of french lyceum) or some sort of vocational qualification and do it for at least one more year. And becouse most of these courses are between 2 - 4 years most sudents decide to carry on. Matura (equivalent to A level similar to German Abitur) is actually most expected qualification in the workplace like offices, for team leaders and so on. And is nercessity if you want to go to Uni.

In my opinion, this form of motivation and promoting further education is better then making it compulsory till 18.